How much does a software engineer make in Cambridge, MA?

There are 3 usual components to employee pay at Tech companies

• Base salary
• Cash bonus
• Long term incentives

Base salary is the monthly payment for coming to work, it's usually fixed and is often quoted yearly. Cash bonuses may be paid quarterly or yearly, they are often a percentage of salary (5-30%) and usually depend on personal performance in the period. Long term incentives give something that may only be convertible into cash at a future date. These can take the form of restricted stock units, stock options or other similar payments. An amount will be allocated to you, usually once per year, and then sometime in the future (1-5 yrs) these units will be convertible into cash at the prevailing rate. This prevailing rate is determined by the performance of the company, in the case of the stock units, it's simply the stock price at the time they become yours (also known as vesting).

Software engineering is a mixture of project work, meetings and mentoring. The meetings and mentoring require you to be present in the office, but the project work can be completed anywhere. This leads to a variety of different working hour practices across different employers. Some simply measure output, and the employee is free to arrive and leave as they please. Others require employees to arrive for a set of core hours (eg 9-5), and also measure the output.

Often, during crunch times, when a product deadline is looming, the engineering team will be expected to work harder than usual, and may end up being in the office for many more hours than contracted - they usually do not receive overtime payments for this work.

This differs greatly between employers. Tech employers are often competing for talented software engineers and often have extremely generous policies, including unlimited paid time off.